News

Let them eat inquiries

It is no longer a secret that benefit sanctions are causing ill health, hunger, homelessness and deaths. The disastrous impact of sanctions and the deaths of David Clapson and others have now been widely reported. More than 200,000 people signed the petition calling for an inquiry into sanctions which led to the Work and Pensions committee agreeing to look at the issue. As we predicted their response is woefully inadequate.

Considering the evidence that was presented to them it is a disgrace that their final report merely calls for mitigation and for yet another inquiry. It is very difficult to imagine any other circumstances where government policy could lead directly to the deaths of members of the public and the response from a parliamentary committee be so feeble. This is a reflection of the extent to which the campaign of hatred against benefit claimants has created a political consensus that no longer views claimants as human beings.

Unsurprisingly the committee ignored our evidence about the wider consequences of sanctions. The report barely acknowledged the fact that sanctions are used to force people to carry out unpaid work and does not consider the wider impact of this on the labour market. Worryingly the report recommends further testing and segmenting of claimants by their attitudes and motivations and says that the DWP should identify and focus on claimants whose attitudes it seeks to change. The report perpetuates the misconception that claimants require correction, threat and punishment. In short it calls for the continuation of sanctions whilst acknowledging that there is no evidence to support the policy.

Sanctions are the withdrawal of subsistence level benefits as a punishment. They are a form of structural violence that uses the threat and imposition of poverty and destitution as an instrument of social control. Sanctions are a fundamentally unjust and unethical policy. They are part of a discourse that stigmatises and demeans claimants and part of a system aimed at undermining social security and disciplining the labour market. It is clear that whoever wins the election that sanctions will continue. And whoever wins the election we will continue to resist this grotesque policy and to support those affected. Here’s how you can help:

Comments

Comments (4)

Leave a reply:

bookmanwales

April 17th at 8:15am

Sanctions have never been about getting people into work, no matter how many sanctions you impose 2.5 million cannot share 0.5 million jobs.
Sanctions are about social control and wage depression, exactly as the workhouses of the 1800's were, a job at any wage level being preferable to starvation (the starving and deaths of workhouse inmates giving an added incentive of course )
The proof of this of course (unmentioned by any media of any party) is that record numbers of people are working ( so we are told) yet income tax receipts are lower than they were with several million less people working.
Unfortunately for those suffering there is no end in sight regardless of who wins the election. Whilst there are members of the Blairite regime in the Labour party nothing will change, Yvette Cooper, Rachel Reeves, Liam Byrne all worship at the temple of Blair and his Tory like policies and will follow the sanction and austerity regime to the bitter end

Anon

April 17th at 3:55pm

Boycott Workfare - your best approach for any policy change around sanctions would be in acknowledging the SNP position, which is to temporarily curtail sanctions until a review.

This is the best chance yet the group has of doing something that will make an absolute difference the campaign has been seeking for the last 5-and-a-bit years.

All SNP PPCs need to be got in touch with pre-election to push for this change under the event of a Labour minority government - a power structure that may will exist in just a few weeks' time.

Pension60

April 17th at 7:00pm

THE 75 PER CENT POOR NON VOTER HAS ALL THE POWER WE NEED
THURSDAY 7 MAY

HOW TO CUT THE TORIES and LIB DEMS INTO A MINORITY OPPOSITION AND OUT OF GOVERNMENT – THE ONLY WAY

NATIONAL HEATLH PARTY – ENGLAND

Vote National Health Party in England and
vote out Prime Minister Cameron and
Health Minister Jeremy Hunt, and
the Tory MP in the famous for being famous, Stafford.
Bring in about 13 MPs that are anti austerity cuts to NHS

CLASS WAR
Vote Class War and vote out Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford and Wood Green voting area in London.
Bring in about 12 MPs calling for double dole and pension.

TUSC
Vote TUSC and vote out Miliband, Labour’s Leader.

TUSC offer to reverse rise in retirement age and so give young people more chance of jobs.

Vote TUSC and bring in a party 100 per cent anti austerity as ex Labour,
sacked from the Labour party for voting against austerity cuts and
sacked by Maggie Thatcher all those years back for not doing austerity cuts.

SOCIALIST GB
Vote Socialist GB and in Brighton, with not just one but three voting areas outnumber the 1 Green MP in Brighton Pavilions voting area, by voting different:

Brighton Kemptown – Socialist GB
Same policies as TUSC

Brighton and Hove – TUSC

VOTE LEFT UNITY PARTY
Vote The Left Unity Party and cut 10 MPs from the big parties
They offer – Ban sanctions, end benefits cuts.

RESULT

400 MPs with the bulk anti austerity parties proven by deeds over the years, with whatever is left of Labour as a fill-in which must change with all these partners.

RULES OF THE GAME

Yougov prediction of polling on 7 May, if you do not vote different:

277 Labour
264 Tories
28 Lib dems

BUT LABOUR HAVE NOT WON

Just because Labour get more seats than Tories, Labour cannot form a UK government.

326 MPs are the minimum threshold to rule the UK parliament.

THE TORIES HAVE WON

In the event of this severe hung parliament (predicted now by all the experts) then the government already in power in UK parliament has to stay in government.

So the Tories would be obliged to remain ruling the UK.

ONLY THE SMALL PARTIES CAN BRING ABOUT DEMOCRACY

Only by voting the small parties can democracy happen.

You need parties on both sides of the benches of the House of Commons for a democracy to work.

With such a severe hung parliament if you do not vote different and bring in new MPs, there would only be the Tories in government, with Labour forever out of power.

SEE HOW YOU, US POOR WHO MAY NOT HAVE VOTED LAST TIME, CAN NOW CHANGE EVERYTHING IN MAY BY VOTING DIFFERENT /
HOW ENSURE REGISTERED TO VOTE (only have til Monday April 20)

http://www.anastasia-england.me.uk

Jane Vasey

April 17th at 9:54pm

This coalition government should be made accountable for peoples deaths as far as I'm concerned. If it weren't for their policies there wouldn't of been desperate people committing suicide or having heart attacks due to the stress.

Location by @daosme from the Noun Project
Whistle by david fauveau ∞ from the Noun Project
Info by Roberto Chiaveri from the Noun Project
Whistle by Mike Ashley from the Noun Project
Whistle by Marvin Wilhelm from the Noun Project
Fullscreen by Garrett Knoll from the Noun Project